As a hypnotherapist, I find the rumblings around the Internet about Obama trying to "hypnotize the masses" using NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) to be quite interesting. The idea that a political candidate might use hypnotic mind control techniques in a campaign is not really that bizarre. After all, advertising agencies use these techniques all the time, and self-help guru Tony Robbins uses this stuff shamelessly. (Did you ever see Shallow Hal? That movie was a bit over the top and not too realistic, but it did serve as a good fable about the power of the mind.) We are constantly under a barrage of hypnotic attacks by people who are trying to sell us something, whether it's hairspray or a political idea.